vantage points and LOS

[SpiralngCadavr]

Okay, so I don't want to hijack another thread, and want to clarify that I've got this straight:

Two scenarios, with a pair of gremlins each on a crate and a crate between them. The first, all three crates are height 1. The second, all three crates are height two.

Gremlin 1 can't see gremlin 2, but gremlin A can see gremlin B. Is this correct? 

[solkan]

Two Ht1 models are standing on Ht1 crates.  There is a Ht1 blocking terrain between them.  According to the printed rules of the game, the two Ht1 models do not have line of sight to each other.

The two models then also fail to have line of sight to each other when they're both standing on the same Ht vantage point terrain because the vantage rule is broken in that case.

Paragraph three of the vantage point rules, in the situation where two models are on the same Ht terrain, there's an intervening blocking terrain, and the rules just say "LoS is drawn normally" without specifying that terrain "below" the models is ignored.  I assume anyone who been on a table with enough vantage point terrain to run into the problem would point out the situation, say "Vantage point to vantage point at the same height, ignore lower terrain, right?", get agreement on the rule change, and go from there.  Presumably that happens often enough the printed version sometimes gets forgotten... 

As far as I can tell, the notion of ignoring terrain below source model and target model stems from trying to fix paragraph three, because depending on how someone fixes paragraph three (either by amending paragraph three, or amending the basic line of sight rules), you can change the rules enough so that line of sight exists in both cases.

Otherwise, please remember that you're drawing line of sight from the top-down perspective.  In that perspective, it's the same situation with different Ht values for the terrain, and the Ht1 vs. Ht2 values don't make a difference in the outcome from Ht1 gremlins.

Edit:  The top down image for the situation:  http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/777830-Gremlin%20Huts.html

Let all three huts have the same terrain attributes:  Ht X, blocking.

The gremlin on the left attempts to draw line of sight to the gremlin on the right, the line crosses blocking terrain which is as tall or taller than they are, so no line of sight exists.

For Ht X=1, no line of sight exists because the regular line of sight rules make no concession for the Ht of the terrain a model is standing on to change how it draws line of sight.  The line of sight crosses the Blocking terrain in the middle that neither model has Ht greater than, so that line of sight is blocked.

For Ht X=2 or more, no line of sight exists because paragraph three of the vantage point rules fails to include instructions to ignore terrain lower than the two models when drawing line of sight normally.  Or, for the same reason as the X=1 case, depending on how you want to look at it.

The bonus annoyance is that the rules for elevation, which should deal this situation, don't.  Instead, this paragraph

Quote

If the blocking object (terrain or model) between the Attacker and target has Ht lower than the Attacker or target's Ht, then the blocking object is ignored for LoS quality (but not cover).

ends up being a paraphrasing of the definition of Blocking:

Quote

Blocking - Objects with the blocking trait cannot be seen through, and therefore block LoS (see pg. 40) if the Ht of the terrain is equal to or greater than the Ht of the models attempting to see through it.

It's the same comparison (the Ht value of the terrain compared to the Ht characteristic of the model) phrased two different ways.

 

[CapnBloodbeard]

others have a better answer than mine...

[SpiralngCadavr]

Hmm, well, I've never played that rule correctly in a few different venues, then. Do people play with this rule, or is it effectively always house ruled away (since, in my experience, it, intentionally or unintentionally, has been)?

So, continuing the line of thought, hypothetically, if a battlefield were made entirely out of 2x2" x ht1 crates that were adjacent to each other (making a level floor in most ways), would it effectively be impossible (without special rules) for ht1 models to see or be seen since everything's a ht1 box but theirs doesn't change their effective height so they're always in a pseudo-hole?

[Bengt]

Hilariously it doesn't even have to be different terrain pieces. If two Ht 2 models are standing on the same Ht 2 blocking terrain piece they won't be able to see other according to RAW. As they are standing on the same Ht the Vantage rules are not used; so we only look top down and find that all LoS lines pass over blocking terrain of the same or greater Ht than the models.

[solkan]

1 hour ago, SpiralngCadavr said:

Hmm, well, I've never played that rule correctly in a few different venues, then. Do people play with this rule, or is it effectively always house ruled away (since, in my experience, it, intentionally or unintentionally, has been)?

So, continuing the line of thought, hypothetically, if a battlefield were made entirely out of 2x2" x ht1 crates that were adjacent to each other (making a level floor in most ways), would it effectively be impossible (without special rules) for ht1 models to see or be seen since everything's a ht1 box but theirs doesn't change their effective height so they're always in a pseudo-hole?

Given the tendency of people to learn to play the game (and learn what the "right" rules interpretations are) by oral tradition, I wouldn't be surprised if many people were unintentionally house ruling the matter.  But the problem is that if someone is just looking at the rules and doesn't spot the Ht1 defect or the vantage point defect, and everyone involved has forgotten that they're using a house rule to fix those defects which changes this other rule, that leads to the thread which this one spun off of.

And, the hypothetical 2x2" Ht1 crate table would have the same hypothetical result as the hypothetical Ht10 "Vantage Points of Doom" table (everything on the table being Ht 10 vantage points):  As soon as anyone realized the consequence of the rules, either the rules would bend to make the table playable, or the players were descending into all-out rules depravity...    But I wouldn't be surprised if the fact that the first several games I played just had Ht2 on them was unconscious avoidance of the issue.

I haven't really thought enough about the various alternatives to decide which house rule I'd prefer to use, although my indecision is mostly concerning the best way to deal with models below the line of sight level.  And it's really easy to slip into messing with rest of the vantage point line of sight rules. 

[Wellingstone]

Elevation rules always have to have some ambiguity. And that bit of counter-intuitiveness comes with the territory. However as written-the way these rules interact is pretty rough without making a house rule. I gotta believe that the intention is not to have two ht 1 models on ht 3 vantage point that can't see each other because there is a ht1 crate on the ground level between them.

I think either an errata or a FAQ is needed.

[solkan]

I swear trying to write out all of the details of a good house rule for the situation seems like it snowballs really fast. 

When drawing line of sight normally, treat an object's Ht as the sum of it's Ht attribute and the elevation of any supporting terrain.  For example, a Ht1 gremlin standing on a Ht1 crate is treated as Ht2 for the purposes of normal line of sight.  Please remember that for vantage point terrain, the model must be within its own Ht value (and not its effective Ht value) of a ledge to ignore it.

If a intervening object between the acting model and the target has an effective Ht lower than the effective height of both the terrain supporting the acting model and the terrain supporting the target, the blocking object is ignored for both line of sight and cover.  If the intervening object is lower than one but not both, the intervening object is considered for cover but not blocking.  For example, if two Ht1 gremlins are standing on top of Ht1 crates, those crates are ignored for both blocking and cover when drawing line of sight from one gremlin to the other.  But when drawing line of sight from a gremlin on a Ht1 crate a gremlin on the ground (Ht 0 blocking terrain) or vice versa, the crate is ignored for the purposes of blocking but not for the purposes of cover.  [This is to make the treatment of cover consistent with the vantage point treatment of cover.]

When dealing with a difference in elevation of two or more between the acting model and the target, use the vantage point line of sight mechanism, because figuring out line of sight down through big objects works better diagonally.  [For slightly better agreement between the vantage point rules and the "same elevation" rules...]

It's amazing how complicated it is to express "The things you're standing on doesn't block line of sight, unless you draw line of sight down" abstractly.

 

[Omenbringer]

3 hours ago, Wellingstone said:

Elevation rules always have to have some ambiguity. And that bit of counter-intuitiveness comes with the territory.

Off topic but I disagree with this sentiment intensely. When it is incorporated into the games design from the start of development, the rules can be made tight and intuitive in the majority of circumstances. The key is it has to be a priority and not an after thought.

[SpiralngCadavr]

It seems like the horizontal rules don't cause weird conflicts.* What's the problem effectively applying the horizontal LOS rules to the vertical ones? (height is just position; check LOS for fully blocking along top and bottom edges, apply cover if appropriate distances... and things with marginally variable height would be affected the same way as height currently is, where it's generally applied in increments of 1 inch)

*Then again, I didn't recognize the problems here before...

[BigHammer]

Isn't this all sorted by drawing the top-down line of sight from a height equal to the base of the models involved? That way it doesn't pass through things that are the same height at all, and then they're ignored. If I was going to house rule the LoS problem outlined here, that would likely be the way I would do it. Then all you need to worry about are things that are higher or lower than the model trying to draw line of sight, which the vantage point rules cover fairly well.